Physical Science
Simulating a Pendulum
Posted by Chad Orzel on May 16, 2013 
There’s a famous story about Richard Feynman at Cornell suffering from the science equivalent of writer’s block, after WWII. He was depressed and feeling like everything he did was pointless, until one day he spotted a student throwing a plate up in the air in the cafeteria. As the plate spun, it wobbled, and the…
Outer Planets’ Stormy Weather: All on the Surface
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on May 16, 2013 Have you complained about the weather recently? On the gas giants at the edges of our solar system, Uranus and Neptune, hurricane-like storm systems as big around as Earth blow 1000 km/h winds for years on end. Voyager II image of Neptune, showing storm features. Image: NASA But wait…What exactly constitutes weather on a giant…
The Rise and Fall of Supersymmetry
Posted by Ethan on May 15, 2013 
“Supposedly she’d died, but here she was again–somewhat changed, but you couldn’t kill her. Not when the truest part of her hadn’t even been born.” -Denis Johnson Over the past 100 years, our picture of the Universe has changed dramatically, on both the largest scales and the smallest. On the large-scales, we’ve gone from a…
Kepler: the little spacecraft that could
Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on May 15, 2013 I come to praise Kepler, not to bury it… The Kepler Mission is one of the little NASA spacecraft that so frequently comes along, exceeds all expectations and changes our perspective of the universe. There is a good Quick History of the transit method and Kepler Mission concept on the website. Otto Struve noted in…
Homework Is Evil?: “The benefits of completing homework for students with different aptitudes in an introductory physics course”
Posted by Chad Orzel on May 14, 2013 
One of the perennial problems of teaching intro physics is getting students to do their homework, so I was very interested to see Andy Rundquist on Twitter post a link to a paper on the arxiv titled “How different incentives affect homework completion in introductory physics courses.” When I shared this with the rest of…
Messier Monday: The Cigar Galaxy, M82
Posted by Ethan on May 13, 2013 
“How is it they live for eons in such harmony - the billions of stars - when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their mind against someone they know?” -Thomas Aquinas Welcome back to another Messier Monday here on Starts With a Bang! Each Monday, we take an in-depth look at one of the 110 deep-sky wonders —…
Mobility on 2+2 Wheels
Posted by Chad Orzel on May 12, 2013 SteelyKid has a new prize possession: a training-wheel bike! You can’t quite hear what she says at the end of this, when she stops the bike, but it’s “That should be a full video!” She knows her fan base. On the way back, she wiped out (the first bad crash on the new bike) and…
The Last Time Atmospheric CO2 was at 400 parts per million Humans Didn’t Exist
Posted by Peter Gleick on May 10, 2013 The planet has passed a disturbing landmark, a marker on a continuing highway to climate disruption. On May 9th, the NOAA and the Mauna Loa observatory reported that atmospheric CO2 levels touched 400 parts per million. Before humans started burning fossil fuels, they were around 280 parts per million. The last time atmospheric CO2…
NASA Astrobiology Roadmap 2 and 3: Prebiotic Evolution and Evolution of Advanced Life
Posted by Steinn Sigurðsson on May 10, 2013 The future of Astrobiology research within NASA is being set now. Next week there are further opportunities for community input. The online discussion for Solar System Exploration wraps up today! If you are an active researcher, a student planning on getting into astrobiology, or an interested member of the community, this is your chance to…
Where does an earthquake’s energy come from?
Posted by Ethan on May 10, 2013 
“As seismologists gained more experience from earthquake records, it became obvious that the problem could not be reduced to a single peak acceleration. In fact, a full frequency of vibrations occurs.” -Charles Francis Richter You’ve all been around long enough to be familiar with the severe damage that earthquakes can cause, rattling and cracking the…
